Read Brad Callen’s lesson titled “4 Proven Strategies For Increasing Your AdSense CTR”.


Callen’s lesson is reprinted here.

4 Proven Strategies For Increasing Your AdSense CTR

While AdSense isn’t the only way to make money off your website, it is definitely one of the easiest ““ all you have to do is configure your ad, drop it into your site template and pat yourself on the back ““ you’re done for the day.

Unfortunately though, setting things up, and actually making money from AdSense are two different things. To earn money from AdSense you need:

* visitors ( traffic )

* clicks on your ads (ads that attract clicks ““ increasing your CTR )

* high payout from those ads ( profitable keywords )

As far as traffic is concerned, that’s what this newsletter is all about! In the email you received for this lesson, browse through the archive list at the bottom of the email, and review what you can about building massive amounts of search engine traffic to your website.

(In the next few lessons I’ll be doing a special series on traffic building techniques ““ very powerful, proven strategies that you must not miss ““ stay tuned).

AdSense Basics

How do you get people to click on an ad?

* Make them pay attention to it ““ if they aren’t looking, they aren’t clicking

* Have ads that match the reader’s needs ““ search engine visitors are typically looking for information on a particular topic ““ are you giving them at information? Are your ads?

* Overcome the “this is an ad ““ ads are bad” psychological barrier ““ in our society and on the Internet we are continuously bombarded by ads and there is a subconscious resistance to them ““ you have to either overcome it or … as I’ll show you, sidestep it.

Attracting Attention

Most people think that the best way to attract attention is to use bright colors and generally make sure that the ads stand out. It’s a good idea in theory, but think of what happens in the real world. The first time you see a bright, garish advertisement, you look at it because it is distracting. The second time though, the advertising is less distracting, although you still look at it.

By the fifth time around, you are able to ignore the bright ad completely and focus on what you were doing before.

This is called ad-blindness ““ the human mind shutting out the distractions of ads (actually, this applies to people and almost everything else around you as well) that are not helping them get what they want.

So first you have to figure out what your readers want. Then you have to make sure that your ads match that.

Relevant Ads

What are your readers looking for? If it’s a search engine visitor, they are usually there looking for information on a topic ““the keywords they typed into the search engine to get there in the first place.

Since they have come to your website looking for more information on that topic, you’d want your ads to be about the same subject so that your visitors pay attention to the ads (because they are relevant to they are searching for) and click on them.

Mental Ad Block

How do you circumvent the inherent bias people have against ads?

By changing them into information.

Quite simply put, your AdSense blocks should be less like ads and be more like the text on your pages. Since your visitors came to your website looking for information on a particular topic, your goal is to ensure that your ads look as much like that information as possible.
4 Proven Tips for Increasing AdSense CTR

Targeted Ads

As AdSense uses keyword matching to deliver ads to your website (they first find out the most important keywords on your website and then deliver ads based on those keywords), it’s important that you write keyword-focused pages.

If the ads are not relevant to your site’s topic, not only will they be out of place but they will also become “˜distractions’ ““ visitors will cast them aside as “˜fluff’ that is outside the realm of information that they are looking for.

Make sure that each page on your site is focused on a single keyword phrase ““ use that keyword throughout your article as well as in all the right areas (title tag, header tag).

Restricting the focus of the topic you are writing about also lets you write keyword-rich content in a natural, conversational voice ““ you’re not forcing the keywords in but instead talking about them as you would talk to another person.

Proven Ad Formats

Allowing for positioning, colors and keyword targeting, some ad formats still manage to get a lot more clicks than others.

High CTR Ad Formats:

* 336 x 280 (large rectangle)
* 300 x 250 (rectangle)
* 250 x 250 (square)

The reason these formats get more clicks is because they resemble content areas more closely ““ and as you will read in the next tip, it’s easier to position these ads in the most visible areas of your website.

Low CTR Ad Formats:

* 468 x 60 (banner ad)
* 160 x 600 (wide skyscraper)
* 120 x 600 (skyscraper)

Banner ads almost never work ““ the format is synonymous with traditional advertising and because of this it tends to get ignored (ad-blindness). On the other hand, while skyscrapers aren’t bad in design themselves, they suffer in CTR because their positioning usually means that they are on the sides (where navigation tends to be), and away from the center of the page (where the main content is).

The only time I’ve seen banner ads work are if they are placed at the bototm of an article – but even then the CTR is too low to merit any recommendations.

Avoid the low CTR ad formats and stick to the high CTR ones on your websites. In fact, use the 336 x 280 rectangle format whenever possible, and use the other two (high CTR formats) only if space is limited. But make sure that you tie in this tip with the next two as well.

Optimal Ad Positioning

The position of your ads will have a great impact on whether your readers pay attention to your ads, and as a result it will affect your CTR as well.

You want your ads to be in the center and middle of the page ““ to make sure that they get maximum visibility. Of course, you still have to make them look like part of the text, otherwise you’ll just turn readers off and they will close the page instead of clicking on a link or an ad.

There are two ways to place ads inside content:

One:

Place rectangle ads above the content (below the heading, above the content body) ““ so if you were had a page on “link building” it would go something like:

Link Building

336 x 280 rectangle adblock

rest of the page content

—–

Two:

Place rectangle ads inside the content (aligned to the right or left) and let the content wrap around them (scroll above and see the ads at the top of this page to see what I’m talking about).

I personally prefer the second option, as it allows you to put ads in a prominent location without giving your website a spammy look, but in some cases if it is implemented right you can pull off the first strategy as well.

Color Combination

As a general rule of thumb, blending your ads in with the colors of your website will increase your CTR because it will cause your ads to look less out of place and more like part of the content. So if your website’s background is white, the ad background and border color should be white as well. If the site’s background is gray, make sure the ad background (and border) is of the same exact color as well.

Similarly, the link text color should also match that of the site text.

There are two more points to think about ““ the link URL and advertiser URL colors.

Traditionally, choosing a “˜blue’ link url color works best, no matter what your site color theme, because people are used to understanding blue underlined text as being a link that can be followed (this goes back to making ads look less like ads and more like the text around them). Add to this the fact that search engine users are the most likely people to click on ads, this means that you don’t really need to worry about your link url color standing out too much ““ for the target group of visitors who are most likely to click on your ads, they wont have enough time to get used to a different color scheme on your website. For them, blue links are the most noticeable and obvious routes of getting access to more information.

For the advertiser URL link, try to make sure that it does not “˜stand’ out from the page. You can do this by choosing a color that complements (and not contrasts) with the background color of your site. On a white background I’d suggest going with light-gray.

All this is designed to make your ads look less like ads and more like regular text.
Profitable Keywords

Getting a lot of traffic and getting that traffic to click on your ads as much as possible is all good, but if the keywords your site is based on are of low-value (that is, advertisers are not bidding too high on them), then you’re basically putting in a lot of effort in building traffic and optimizing your website for nothing.

Try to build websites around terms and niches in which advertisers are willing to pay a lot of money ““ this way you will really start to notice a difference in your AdSense earnings once you apply the techniques I’ve listed above.

How do you find profitable keywords, you ask? The way I see it you have three options:

* Buy high-paying AdSense keyword lists from sites like AdSense Heaven

* Find high-paying AdSense keywords manually (using tools like the Overture keyword selector, and bid tool

* Use a software like Keyword Elite that does everything for you.

Option 1 will cost you a lot of money if you are looking to built several AdSense sites ““ and as I told you in the recent lesson on building a VRE Empire, it’s a numbers game. You want to have dozens of small websites bringing in income instead of one big fat website ““ not only are the smaller websites much easier to setup, they rarely need much time to “˜manage’ and can run on autopilot for years.

Option 2, on the other hand, will take up a lot of your time ““ you don’t want to be spending your time doing keyword research, you want to do what is the most important step in building your wealth ““ optimizing your website for maximum AdSense clicks and bringing traffic to it.

Option 3 ““ well, I’ve discussed Keyword Elite before, so I’ll let you guys check it out and make your own decision. All I’ll say is that you can build high-paying lists in just minutes; it beats both previous options for time and money.

That’s all for today ““ I hope that you will use the tips in this lesson to improve your site’s CTR and if you are still focusing on low-paying keywords, I’d suggest that you drop everything you are doing and focus on getting into a profitable niche first.

All the best,

Brad Callen
Professional SEO
http://www.seoelite.com
http://www.keywordelite.com

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*IMNewswatch would like to thank Brad Callen for granting permission to reprint this lesson.

 

 

 

 

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